Thom Yorke retunes mid-song and jokes with Jonny at Wembley Arena

Thom Yorke was alone with an acoustic guitar, a green light passing over him, when he realised in the first verse of “Exit Music (For a Film)” that he was out of tune. He stopped, retuned and went on, and at the end walked away from the microphone laughing. John Robinson saw it at Wembley Arena on Sunday 16 November, Radiohead's only night there on this tour, and reviews the show in this week's NME.

Hardly a word was said from the stage. The one exchange Robinson reports is a joke Yorke tried on Jonny Greenwood. I say Jonny, my dog's got no nose.¹ Jonny gave him the feed line, How does he smell?¹, and got Exceptionally morose.¹

Yorke was less patient when Jonny had to move from guitar to keyboard. Yeahhh... whenever Jonny's ready...¹ He hurried the crowd into “Creep” with C'mon... We haven't got all night...¹, then, instead of playing it grudgingly, stood conducting the singing with one hand in the air.

The night opened on “Airbag” and ran to two encores, the first bringing back “Lurgee” from Pablo Honey. After “Let Down” and “The Tourist” closed the second, Radiohead thanked the support bands, grinning.

The lights stayed dim all night and the band were hard to see. Robinson dwells on the many sections of “Paranoid Android”, and decides Radiohead are not simply the new Pink Floyd but something less predictable, with a mystique around Yorke that he puts beside Bowie's alien pose and Michael Stipe.

Setlist